Perduro shook her head, put out her hand. “Commander, Captain. I hereby accept and duly record your departures from active service. It’s been a pleasure having you here, gentlemen.” Releasing Trevor’s hand, she suddenly looked her full age. “After today’s events, and what it implies about our undisclosed adversary’s ability to run rings around us on the calendar, I’m seriously considering moving this facility to Defcon Two on my own initiative. And I think you gentlemen should move up your departure time to catch the Prometheus, just in case she has to fuse a little extra deuterium to get out of town ahead of schedule.”
Caine nodded at the ominous implications of that precaution. “And when do you recommend we depart, Admiral?”
“Five minutes ago, Commander. Get the hell out of my sight, grab your gear, and Godspeed to you both.”
Chapter Five
Fifty minutes later, while settling into the accommodations on the modular cutter that was set to sternchase and catch the Prometheus before her shift, Caine finished folding the dress uniform he had worn precisely one time: yesterday, when he had been commissioned in the Space Force. He stared at the silver oak leaf on the jacket’s shoulder. God damn, how the hell did I get through four weeks of combined basic and OCS? And zero-gee ops and logistics? And combat simulators and live-fire range time whenever I wasn’t up to my eyeballs in refresher calculus and space physics? Between the trip-hammer pace and never more than five hours of sleep a night, it had become an absurdist comedy by week three. And then, with a salute and a step back, it was all over. Mustered out into the Reserves. As if it had never happened at all.
From the other side of the cramped cabin, Trevor’s voice was wry. “Thinking great thoughts?”
“Hell, just thinking. I forgot what that feels like.”
Trevor emitted a short laugh. “Yeah, they kept you busy. Kept shifting gears between brain-work and body-work, too. Although that can help.”
“Why?”
Trevor didn’t look up, kept entering security codes into their shared commplex. He was determined to finish changing the habmod’s registry from military to civilian/diplomatic before the cutter got underway. “When I went into the Teams, the hardest thing about hell-week was that it was almost all physical. They just kept hammering at you, at the same strengths or weaknesses. Half the battle for me was finding a way to cope with the monotony.” Trevor turned away from the commplex. Now when the module arrived at Earth, it would not indicate its passengers were military personnel. “Fortunately, I had a very colorful instructor.”
“Colorful?”
“Stosh Witkowski. Never cusses, but he has a rare talent for inventing the most elegant insults that I have ever heard. And of course, I got a particularly rich share of his attention.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Trevor looked at Caine as if he was yet another new species of exosapient. “I was an officer, an Annapolis legacy, and the child of a celebrity father.” The last word threatened to catch in his throat; Trevor rose and exited their stateroom briskly, waved for Caine to follow. “Let’s get something to eat before they make us strap in.”
Caine followed Trevor into the small galley that was opposite the module’s combination entry hatch/docking ring. The small observation port—still unsealed—offered a memorable view: framed by the top-and-bottom gridwork of the cutter’s module-laden trusses, the system’s second gas giant loomed as a great black arc, backlit by the dim red glow of the occulted Barnard’s Star. A blood-washed white dot winked near the shoulder of the dark planetary curve.
Trevor nodded at the speck. “Say goodbye to The Pearl. They’ll be shutting the viewport any minute now.”
“Why?”
“Meteorology detected a flare, just as we came on board. Nothing too rough, but in addition to the rads kicked off by the gas giant, you’ll want more than a layer of sunscreen between you and the Great Out There.”
“Has The Pearl changed much since the last time you were here?”
“Does a ’Force base ever change?”
Caine snagged a cube of water, unfolded the integral straw. “You tell me. It seemed—well, almost deserted.”
Trevor nodded, perching on the countertop across from Caine in the excessively cozy space. “Yeah, and I had expected the opposite. Given all the traffic that’s been through here, and all the carriers and combat craft that the rosters say are in-system, I was sure the place would be overflowing, not a ghost town.”
Caine looked at him directly. “Galley scuttlebutt says that it’s because almost all the combat hulls are already deployed and double-crewed. Waiting.”
Trevor sipped his water, waved a dismissive hand. “Yeah, yeah, the Defcon Three that no one mentions and everyone knows about. Great cover-up, too: lots of threadbare bullshit about ‘routine maneuvers.’ Meanwhile, it’s common knowledge that assets are being dispersed to undisclosed groupment points or are shifting out-system to the ‘training reserve’ at Ross 154. Some secret.”
“And all that precautionary activity wouldn’t clear the bleachers?”
“Not like this, no. It wasn’t just the lack of shipside ratings cycling through the base. It was the constant reduction of dirtside techs. Do you know that there were fifteen hundred cryocelled maintenance and construction personnel sent back on the last carrier that went out?”
“Are replacements on the way?”
Trevor shook his head. “I went down to the slips, asked around. Nada.”
“So what do you think the brass is up to, and why aren’t they telling us?”
“They’re not telling us because we’re not in the need-to-know loop.” Trevor grinned ruefully. “And since no one here is aware that we’re IRIS operatives, no one is aware that we have the clearance to hear the secrets they’re not going to tell us, anyway. On the up side, we also never had to use those goofy, Odyssey-based code names my father hung on us.”
“Admiral Perduro knows about our clearance levels.”
“Yeah, but I’m not so sure she’s fully in the loop herself. Look how she reacted to your commissioning orders: an official posting to Naval Intelligence but with a track for unrestricted line promotions. I don’t think she saw that coming, judging from the way she frowned when she read it out to you.”
Caine nodded. “I think you’re right. Downing cut the orders; she just cut the ribbon.”
“Thereby authorizing you to wreak havoc amongst genuine military personnel.”
“Smile when you say that, Captain.”
“I was.”
“Didn’t look like it.”
“I was smiling inside.”
“Uh huh.”
Trevor did smile now. “Look, nothing against you, Caine, but Uncle Richard seems to be making this stuff up as he goes along. My promotion, your commission and ‘training,’ our immediate conversion to reserve status: this is so nonregulation, that I’m past being surprised. For all I know, he might try to appoint someone as Grand Fez-Wearing Poo-Bah of the God-Emperor’s Armada. What he’s been doing with ranks and titles and clearances—hell, it’s just not done.”
“Well, maybe not, but Downing had sign-offs from the president and the Joint Chiefs.”
“Yeah, but just because it comes from so high up the chain of command that no one dares question it doesn’t mean that it’s in trim with the regs. And I’m telling you, based on eighteen years of first-hand experience, that it is all non-reg. Sooner or later, someone’s going to insist upon an explanation.”